Amazon seems to have gained early victory as a federal judge has temporarily halted a USD 10 billion military contract. The court’s order came in response to a suit filed by Amazon. The company has argued in the suit that it lost the project because the US President wanted to screw Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The injunction granted by the federal judge is the latest development in the ongoing saga of the cloud computing project. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure or JEDI project went to Microsoft after a yearlong bidding process. The project aims to modernize the US military by providing better access to cloud and data from battlefields. The project plans to use artificial intelligence to increase fighting capabilities of the US army. It is expected to run for 10 years.
Several tech giants were vying for the project with Amazon and Microsoft being the front runners. Companies like Google, IBM and Oracle were ruled out by the Defense of Department with Amazon and Microsoft picked as two finalists. Microsoft won the contract on October 25. Amazon Web Services then moved a formal motion demanding injunction. In its motion, the company stated that President Trump was biased against Jeff Bezos. Amazon claims that Trump’s grudge against Jeff Bezos is a contributing factor in Microsoft getting the award. Amazon claimed that its most up-to-date submissions were not reviewed before giving the project to Microsoft. The company said it is protesting the decision to make sure the process was free of external influence.
Trump has been openly critical of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post newspaper. The US President often criticizes the newspaper of being biased. Amazon dominates the cloud computing market and already has some of the major government contracts like with the CIA. Meanwhile, Microsoft is not happy with the development as the move will additionally delay the project. Criticizing the ruling, Microsoft said it has confidence in the Department of Defense. “We believe that facts will prove that all procedures were followed before awarding the JEDI project,” Microsoft said in a statement. Microsoft has already started preparation for the project. DOD is also not happy with the federal court order but expressed confidence in its decision to award the project to Microsoft.